Is anyone aware of anywhere that the Rebbe writes concerning it being proper for boys, including very young ones, to be taught by male teachers davka and not female ones. Please provide the source. Thanks in advance.

they did not go to the 9-10 year old class that is a modern Mishigas! Of course they were in Cheder with a Rebbe at age 3! You would be surprised but if you walk into a Cheder in Williamsburg or any Poilishe Cheder, you will see how they have Rebbe's from age 3!

You would be surprised but if you walk into a Cheder in Williamsburg or any Poilishe Cheder, you will see how they have Rebbe's from age 3!

So this is yet another depressing item in the list of areas in which we have lower standards, R"l.

So what is the basis for this practice in our circle of having female teachers for ages 3-? Women want to get out of the house? We need to find something to keep the girls busy while they look for a shidduch?

If you look in the FR's memoirs, the impression I get is that the Rebbe was not hired at such a young age for many kids; rather the Rebbe was hired when the kids were getting to an age where they needed to start learning properly as bochurim do (which is maybe 8 or 9?) Many families who could not afford a Rebbe would leave them at home with Mommy while Tatty was in the field farming or at his shop.

It seems to me that the families with no Mommy (lo aleinu) or the families where both parents worked would rely on family or neighbors to watch the kids. This is my understanding (m'pi shmuah from those who are now grandparents themselves) of how small communities behaved in places like Kvar Chabad and Brunei. Modern play groups function in much the same way as those babysitters did.

I think the difference today is not so much that we brought women into the schools as it is that we brought women and the children they watch into the schools. We have programs for as young as 2 years old; which were simply not in the budget in der alter heim. The women who watched those kids before now have titles to go with the job.

Because of the reality of life there. And - do you really think it was more successful back then?

What do you mean by "reality of life"? How should I know what was successful decades before I was born? I do tend to think that any deviation from the traditional form of chinuch in der alter heim should not be taken lightly at all. But perhaps my image of those times is too idyllic.

Meh, you had kids being taught my mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, random melamdim, you had rich people supporting a private tutor for their kids, you had all kinds of arangements (if the children infact attended school at all!)

(before you criticize, if a woman could read tzena urena, it meant that she could read, if not understand, hebrew... which means that they were capable of teaching a child to read basic hebrew text.)

No one answered my question: Isn't the whole idea of the hachnoso lecheder ceremony that at age 3 the boy goes to cheder, i.e., he is taught by a male teacher? This seems to imply that al pi minhag Yisroel, that is what is proper.

No one answered my question: Isn't the whole idea of the hachnoso lecheder ceremony that at age 3 the boy goes to cheder, i.e., he is taught by a male teacher? This seems to imply that al pi minhag Yisroel, that is what is proper.

Why do you think that it means davka that a boy is taught by a male teacher instead of simply going to school for the first time?

the confusing thing about starting chinuch at three is that there are few halachic sources to confirm it, and did they really seriously expect 3 year olds to start school and actualy behave in the standard cheder enviornment?

I'd have to look in what sources are available, but more than likely taking him to school was connected to giving him an alef bais covered in honey, IE good behavioral conditioning to make the child look forward to going to school and study hard with mommy, as well as a symbolic entery into his formal education. (you'd be foolish to assume that he's actualy capable of truly learning his alef bais then... maybe one in a thousand children can do this, if that.)

Not that davka he's being taught by a male. Do you have a source otherwise? (the book on upshiurin from sichos in english mentions nothing of the sort.)